Drug Raids: Las Vegas Narc Serving Marijuana Search Warrant Kills Father-to-Be In His Own Bathroom
A 21-year-old father-to-be was killed last Friday night by a Las Vegas Police Department narcotics officer serving a search warrant for marijuana. Trevon Cole was shot once in the bathroom of his apartment after he made what police described as "a furtive movement."
Police have said Cole was not armed. Police said Monday they recovered an unspecified amount of marijuana and a set of digital scales. A person identifying herself as Cole's fiancée, Sequoia Pearce, in the comments section in the article linked to above said no drugs were found.
Pearce, who is nine months pregnant, shared the apartment with Cole and was present during the raid. "I was coming out, and they told me to get on the floor. I heard a gunshot and was trying to see what was happening and where they had shot him," Pearce told KTNV-TV.
According to police, they arrived at about 9 p.m. Friday evening at the Mirabella Apartments on East Bonanza Road, and detectives knocked and announced their presence. Receiving no response, detectives knocked the door down and entered the apartment. They found Pearce hiding in a bedroom closet and took her into custody. They then tried to enter a bathroom where Cole was hiding. He made "a furtive movement" toward a detective, who fired a single shot, killing Cole.
"It was during the course of a warrant and as you all know, narcotics warrants are all high-risk warrants," Capt. Patrick Neville of Metro's Robbery-Homicide Bureau said Friday night.
But a person identifying himself as Pearce's brother, who said he had spoken with his sister, had a different version of events: "The police bust in the door, with guns drawn to my little sister and her now deceased boyfriend," he wrote. "My sister is 8 ½ months pregnant, two weeks until the due date. But they bust in the door, irritated they didn't find any weapons or drugs, drag this young man into the restroom to interrogate him and two minutes later my sister hears a shot. They shot him with a shotgun, no weapon. For what? My sister is a baby, this young man is a baby, now my sister is at his house telling his mom her son is dead, and he is barely 21."
Pearce herself told the Las Vegas Review-Journal Monday that police forced her to kneel at gunpoint in the bedroom and that she could see Cole in the bathroom from the reflection of a mirror. According to Cole, police ordered Cole to get on the ground, he raised his hands and said "Alright, alright," and a shot rang out.
According to Pearce and family members, Cole had no criminal record, had achieved an Associate of Arts degree, and was working as an insurance adjustor while working on a political science degree at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. He was not a drug dealer, Pearce said.
"Trevon was a recreational smoker. He smoked weed, marijuana. That’s what he did," she told KTNV-TV. "They didn't have to kill him. We were supposed to get married next year, plan a black and white affair,” she said. "He was all I ever knew, we were gonna make it."
LVPD Monday identified the police shooter as narcotics detective Bryan Yant, a 10-year veteran of the force. This is the third time Yant has controversially used his police firearm. In 2002, he shot and killed a robbery suspect, claiming the suspect, who was on the ground, aimed a weapon at him. But although the suspect's gun was found 35 feet away, a jury took only half an hour to find the shooting justified.
The following year, he shot and wounded a man armed with a knife and a baseball ball who had been hired to kill a dog that had killed another neighborhood dog. Yants claimed the man attacked him and that he mistook the bat for a shotgun, but the man said he was running away from Yants when Yants fired repeatedly, striking him once in the hip. Because there was no death in that case, no inquest was held, but the department's use of force board exonerated Yants.
Yants is on paid administrative leave while the department investigates. The family has hired an attorney to pursue a civil action. And another American has apparently been killed for no good reason in the name of the war on drugs.
"Narcotics warrants are high risk warrants," said Capt. Neville. The question is for whom, and the answer is obvious: The people on the receiving end of them. The police? Not so much, as we have shown in our annual surveys of police casualties in the drug war.

Almost unbelievable! Except, cops, politicians and the wealthy have been doing this since forever. Weed is a threat to them because there is no way to tax and track it all.

Backed by billions of their own tax dollars the war on middle and poor America continues to kill recreational pot smokers and those suffering from health troubles. How does marijuana remain a controlled while alcohol remains legal? Although alcohol has some medicinal purposes it has proved to be an American blight. The biggest threat to the life of the user of marijuana and those around them turns out to be those paid to protect and serve our community.

It is a threat to the medical community (wealthy). Studies show it's medicinal uses for humans, suffering from inflictions ranging from cachexia; cancer; chronic pain; epilepsy and other disorders characterized by seizures; glaucoma; HIV or AIDS; multiple sclerosis and other disorders characterized by muscle spasticity; and nausea (not to mention it's unstudied potential). Someone suffering from chronic pain smoking/vaporizing to improve quality of life without over prescribed narcotics driven by drug manufactures incentives doesn’t stand a chance. Pain management doctors/capitalist can't gain from your use, your finding quality of life outside the confines of extortion.

Don't blame the pain management doctors! They have to put up with the same sort of stuff! There are several that have been imprisoned and lost their careers while trying to compassionately care for chronic pain patients. But, some of the other pain management doctors are the ones that testified against us! Nice way to get rid of the competition, huh?!

The medical profession will get all they deserve, if this health care bill is not nullified! But, it will hurt, mostly, the patients that need them!

And bitch all you want about capitalists! This country has not been a free market, for years, in the profession. And, I still don't understand why a doctor should not be adequately compensated, after spending up to 15+ years in school! Nobody gripes about the sports figures and their salaries, or the entertainers and their salaries!

Almost unbelievable! Except, cops, politicians and the wealthy have been doing this since forever. Weed is a threat to them because there is no way to tax and track it all.

Backed by billions of their own tax dollars the war on middle and poor America continues to kill recreational pot smokers and those suffering from health troubles. How does marijuana remain controlled while alcohol remains legal? Although alcohol has some therapeutic intention it has proved to be an American blight. The biggest threat to the life of the user of marijuana and those around them turns out to be those paid to protect and serve their communities.

There are so many reasons why it’s not legal, the one that bothers me the most is it’s threat to the medical community . Studies show it's medicinal uses for humans, suffering from inflictions ranging from cachexia; cancer; chronic pain; epilepsy and other disorders characterized by seizures; glaucoma; HIV or AIDS; multiple sclerosis and other disorders characterized by muscle spasticity; and nausea (not to mention it's unstudied potential). Someone suffering from chronic pain smoking/vaporizing to improve quality of life without prescribed narcotics driven by drug manufactures incentives doesn’t stand a chance. Pain management doctors/capitalist can't gain from your use, your finding quality of life outside the confines of extortion. What could it mean if we had the right to find our own cures for things like sever nausea, migraine headaches, far fewer doctor visits, fewer $$ to the millionaire doctors and less $$ to the billionaire administrators and share holders who crush our rights with their wallets paying lobbyists to persuade and line the pockets of wealthy politicians to maintain our government’s condemnation of our harmless pursuit of happiness and better health.

This is the reason I left that dump of a town. Vegas cops are so over-the-top that I'm not surprised by this at all. Especially considering the cop's gun happy background. Sadly, he has a third victim on his hands and I will bet more than anything he will be exonerated from this just as he was in the past. This is simply pathetic. I have a brother-in-law that's a Vegas cop. We don't get along at all due to continuous tension because I question his choice of a so-called "career". My wife spoke to him after I read this article to her and she told me he stands behind the officer and what he did. That doesn't shock me one bit. Vegas cops have so much leniency they can get away with all kinds of crap like this.

I feel horrible for the families involved here and especially for his wife-to-be and his unborn child that will never know his/her father all because a cop claimed he made a "furtive" movement and murdered him. That's what this is... murder. Only due to the fact that this was an officer involved shooting it's legally not considered murder. I hope this animal with a badge goes to prison this time for what he's done. Throw him in with the general population and let them have their way with him. He should get what he deserves. PRISON!

And the cops involved very likely will go home and take drugs themselves- alcohol. And like the pols, they utterly refuse to explain or discuss why they think their killer drug is superior to much more peaceful cannabis. Good people are dying over less than nothing, history is not going to be kind to the creeps who hate drug use except when the drug is alcohol, in which case they love drug use. God damn these bloodsoaked hypocrites.

Ask any lawyer from Las Vegas, as I have, who knows the fiefdom of Nevada, and they will tell you about Nevada’s ‘frontier justice’, something which some NV judges have openly bragged about in court proceedings. You might want to ask O. J. Simpson how things operate in the Silver State. His problems are typical of what can happen there.

That a homicidal maniac might be on the loose within the Las Vegas police narcotics department would surprise no one who knows Vegas. Police corruption in the city probably runs a close second to New Orleans.

Years ago when a biker gang rolled into Vegas, the cops strung a chain through the wheels of all the parked bikes, and then used a tow truck to drag the motorcycles outside the city limits. One of Las Vegas’s former DAs was known to have planted an electronic bug in the law office of his former law partners to gain information on new criminal cases. A former Clark County sheriff’s brother murdered a guy and got off on a minor technicality, thanks to the decision of a local judge who nearly always gave the maximum sentence for any crime. And the current Las Vegas mayor, Oscar B. Goodman, is a former mob attorney. I expect not much has changed. Viva, Las Vegas.

There is no way Las Vegas is going to clean up its act without some kind of extra-territorial and international focus that spotlights its sorry state of affairs in a way that impacts its gambling industry.

Also, the plaintiffs in the upcoming Trevon Cole case need to understand that they will be going up against a corrupt municipality in which the local Vegas lawyers probably have some fiduciary relationship with the city, county and state. The way to counter this conflict of interest is to hire counsel both inside and outside the state. The local lawyers and the out-of-state lawyers can then use a good-cop, bad-cop strategy, respectively, to saw the local establishment in half and win the case.

Thats Crap! Especially if they didnt find anything and if the second story is true. I think the family should take a CRIMINAL act against the PD and Bryan Yant. How do they know the couple wasnt sleeping or something to that nature! And so now the mother has to raise this newborn by herself? That makes me so sick hes lucky he hasnt done that to the wrong family yet that he was still around to go home to his family on leave from his stupidity!

"In a U.S. legal context, the term "narcotic" specifically refers to opium, opium derivatives, and their semi-synthetic or fully synthetic substitutes, as well as cocaine and coca leaves." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcotic

A "furtive" movement was enuff for a shotgun shot? Did the idiot officer think he wouldn't kill him? WTF. They need to put this stuff up on national media, not keep it on reddit etc... Punishments need to be given out immediately; the government shouldn't protect murderers.

This is more of an issue on corrupt cops rather than drug identification. All the stoners can say "weed isnt a drug", but in the end, cops will still be corrupt. Make a better case than supporting your drug of choice. I personally consider it as a drug, but not a narcotic. If u still get "high", it's a drug. If u like plants, go smoke some tobacco, you won't have any problems with the law officials unless you're underage.

Man. I know people have said this already, but speaking purely scientifically, marijuana is not a narcotic. It's a psychedelic. It does not produce in the user the same kind of dangerous behavior that narcotics do.

The US is an empire in decline. Not long now till anarchy and martial law.

Officer Yants needs to be stripped of his license to kill the innocent. A petition drive should be started to focus national attention to the continued abuse of police authority and the efforts of Police and prosecuters to cover up and justify the abuses.

Officer Yants is a danger to the citizens of Las Vegas and clearly has demonstrated that he is not answerable to anyone when he decides to execute someone for the sake of his pride or personal pleasure.

This shooting will result in a multi-million dollar settlement for the unborn child and Officer Yants will continue to leach his living from the same citizens he made liable for all of his personal pleasures as a macho narcotics cop.

The people who pay the bills need to understand that the liabilities posed to them by departments of police and prosecutors for their over-zealous pursuit of percieved crimminal behavior is not worth the price that the results achieve. If it were run like a business you would find the taxpayers opting not to invest in a business with no dividends.

Let us all pray that Officer Yants is stripped of his power to be a licensed executioner and that the department heads begin to realize that the bill payers are tired of cleaning up their screw ups.

Alcohol abuse kills, the war on marijuana kills, but when does marijuana kill? When's the last time one of those late night knocks on the door bringing ghastly news was caused by marijuana abuse?
Many important principles people care about - protecting and sending honest message to our children, preventing violence and corruptos, insuring liberty and justice for all, keeping the united in United States and all its communities, keeping public finances in sound order, and insuring respect for police - are undermined by a war on drugs that gives alcohol a free pass and comes down hard on responsible cannabis users, with all the attending black market caused grief familiar from the earlier attempt to order alcohol users not to use alcohol.

If you're a lefty, you're against the failed drug war; if you're a righty, you're for privacy and individual rights. So who wants the drug war enough to tolerate the endless ruined lives and (police) murders? Cop unions and cops. They get helicopters, SWAT gear and (not enough) SWAT training. It's just empire-building on the backs and lives of the citizens cops are supposed to protect.

We forget our roots:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

cops are above the law. when they put on that badge they do no wrong and nothing or nobody is going to do anything about it. the justice system is a joke, because unless you are rich your screwed. the cop will always win in a court off law no matter what. then they sit and high five each other like there so bad. i wounder what ever happened to that cop that busted a person with a pound of pot took it home him and his wife ate it then killed 911 saying he was going to die.

From the reports I've read there, Yants needs a vision exam and a desk job... assuming he is found fit to serve the public any longer. If he needs to be on warrant raids, maybe he can drive the van, or get the coffee and donuts... I'd say clean up the blood, but with him off of the team, it might not be a necessary job.

Cops like this "P O S" is why I resigned. No I never made a pot bust why? Because It's WEED!!!!!!!!!!! How many homes have been blown up by separating stems and seeds. This cop? is a murderer. He is a blemish on every good cop out there. I can tell you this they did not knock and announce. They busted in looking for people to resist.Boycott Vegas.

Getting stoned on a regular basis changes your personality. When the value of being trippy increases other values are diminished. Who would want to, or could possibly, live in a world where everyone was stoned? If everyone was stoned everything would collapse. You as isolated individuals can get stoned and there is no real harm because no one misses what you could have been doing in a productive sense. Be satisfied with what you have: you are able to drop out and no one cares because you are a small part of the population. But for the sake of maintaining a society where people produce what is needed for other people, who are are also producing for other people, the stoned slackers have to be kept to a small enough part of the population so as not to be any more than an example of what an undisciplined and unexamined life will devole into.

good job LVPD. you sure solved a serious problem up there, protecting the people from violence.

oh wait. the cops that are killing the peaceful? oh well, they're cops so they know best. good thing they can get away with murder! i would hate to see this suit have to rot in prison for the rest of his life with all the other murderers (not to mention all those people he wrongly imprisoned).

I remember the day when my apartment was raided an torn apart by metro making it un liveable. I am glad I took my son out to eat that day. There was a woman left in my home she was visiting me. The cops came into my house and left it in shambles, JULY , 2001. at 1525 Fremont Street at the South Cove Apartments. I was told they had their guns drawn. When I got home, I called the police station and the commander on charge "said it was just a mistake in the address" I could have been shot and my young son. Then I knew I had to send him out of town and eventually I moved. I do not take illegal drugs or drink. When I moved the police pulled me to the side of the road and had me to get out and accuse me of looking like a drug dealer my hair was natural and my skin is black. They eventually took my car and put it in impound and I never was able to get it back. No one believed at that time the police that were were selling drugs. They were taking people cars and possessions out of people homes and selling them.

NOT UNTIL, one of the policeman kidnapped a doctor and eventually was shot by a fellow cop. No matter how much we called and complain about cops stealing cars and drugs. No one would listen.

2 murders and 1 attempted murder. The cop in this story is a fucking pig and fuck this country for letting its law enforcement get to the point where they can murder and rape unpunished in cities across the map.

this whole joke of a country is heading towards a very dark place when sadistic serial killers are allowed to serve warrants on people in their homes, and carry out their crazed murders DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF other police!!!

I 100% agree with Red when he state, "this whole of a country is heading toward a very dark place..." The police in many places are out of order and take advantage of their power. Marijuana is not something that these assholes should be targeting, as they do NO harm to others.

Alcohol is worse of a drug and nothing is done to repeat offenders besides given a slap on the wrist. What a joke is right.

Be happy with what you have, you can get out and nobody cares because you are a small part of the population, but for the benefit of the community where people produce things for other people who also produced for others should be stop.